Holden On
2011-08-03 - by
Can Holden Thorp escape being sacked by an all-out Rams Club blitz?
Even worse, he’s catching hell both ways: from people mad he fired Butch Davis and from people mad he didn’t fire Davis earlier.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Here’s the story I hear: Davis’ firing was Thorp’s doing, not new trustees chair Wade Hargrove. Thorp had to wait until Bob Winston stepped down, because Winston was Davis’ biggest booster. Thorp seized the opportunity to do what he knew all along he needed to do.
Thorp has lost the support of the Rams Club fanatics. He won’t get them back. What he has to do now, politically, is rally support from the academic side of UNC.
He needs to do something dramatic and visible. Maybe clean up the academic-advising mess that Bob Orr outlined in his N&O op-ed. And overhaul the Honor Court so it can spot obvious plagiarism.
Then Thorp might heed the not-so-subtle public advice he has been getting from the venerated Bill Friday, who knows something about handling these matters. Friday keeps asking, in effect, “Who is behind all this pressure to win at all costs?”
In the end, Thorp will have to show the Rams Club who runs the university. That’s the right thing to do now, and the right way to go down in history as a great chancellor.
Holden On
2011-08-03/
Can Holden Thorp escape being sacked by an all-out Rams Club blitz?
Even worse, he’s catching hell both ways: from people mad he fired Butch Davis and from people mad he didn’t fire Davis earlier.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Here’s the story I hear: Davis’ firing was Thorp’s doing, not new trustees chair Wade Hargrove. Thorp had to wait until Bob Winston stepped down, because Winston was Davis’ biggest booster. Thorp seized the opportunity to do what he knew all along he needed to do.
Thorp has lost the support of the Rams Club fanatics. He won’t get them back. What he has to do now, politically, is rally support from the academic side of UNC.
He needs to do something dramatic and visible. Maybe clean up the academic-advising mess that Bob Orr outlined in his N&O op-ed. And overhaul the Honor Court so it can spot obvious plagiarism.
Then Thorp might heed the not-so-subtle public advice he has been getting from the venerated Bill Friday, who knows something about handling these matters. Friday keeps asking, in effect, “Who is behind all this pressure to win at all costs?”
In the end, Thorp will have to show the Rams Club who runs the university. That’s the right thing to do now, and the right way to go down in history as a great chancellor.